Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Was Charles Darwin an Agnostic Atheist?

Let me say, right at the start, that I really don't care whether Charles Darwin was a deist, an agnostic, an atheist, or something else entirely. He died on April 19, 1882. That was a very long time ago. And the truth of evolution does not depend on what Darwin may or may not have believed about God.

Still, it's of some historical interest to learn what Darwin thought of religion. My own opinion is that these speculations are never going to be satisfactorily answered because Darwin was not always candid about his beliefs, for Emma's sake.

It's not going to make my agnostic friends happy but I think it's a pretty good analysis of Darwin's beliefs. I especially like the emphasis on the fact that his grandfather wasn't religious and his father (Robert) was an atheist. I'm pretty sure that his brother, Erasmus, was a nonbeliever as well. It strains credibility to imagine that Darwin was ever a religious man.

13 comments
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I think you give a rather crude and slanted analysis too much credit: at a basic level, it makes its argument by assuming that anything other than a pious believer is an atheist. Darwin's father Robert (not Richard) was quietly a freethinker, and publicly supported the Church of England. Describing him as an atheist is simplistic, and from my limited understanding of the period inaccurate. Similarly, the term materialism did not imply atheism in the 1820s when Darwin was exposed to such ideas, according the Desmond, and that seems likely to apply to Darwin's notebook "oh you materialist".

The article skips over the probability that Darwin's religious beliefs changed over time. It also conflates what looks like genuine openness with atheism. Darwin's doubts have been interestingly discussed in the Correspondence Project, which also notes how ID proponents seize on such doubts. http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/content/view/130/125/

Near the end of his life, Darwin was still interested in religious views on science, and on 3 July 1881 wrote to William Graham saying, while not accepting "that the existence of so-called natural laws implies purpose. I cannot see this..... Nevertheless you have expressed my inward conviction, though far more vividly and clearly than I could have done, that the Universe is not the result of chance. But then with me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man's mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey's mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?"

Plantinga has erected a philosophical attack on "naturalism" on a misrepresentation of Darwin's clear feeling in that specific letter that religious convictions are questionable when evolution is accepted, but that there is still a conviction that there is some deep purpose. Don't think it's reasonable to call that atheism, agnosticism is a pretty good description.

I think you give a rather crude and slanted analysis too much credit: at a basic level, it makes its argument by assuming that anything other than a pious believer is an atheist. Darwin's father Robert (not Richard) was quietly a freethinker, and publicly supported the Church of England. Describing him as an atheist is simplistic ...

An atheist is someone who doesn't believe in God. Is that simplistic enough?

Robert Darwin (thanks for the correcting the slip-up) supported the Unitarian church as well as the Church of England. Darwin supported his local church even though he did not attend the services on Sunday morning. That does not make him a theist.

I understand why some people want to avoid calling Darwin an agnostic atheist. The alternative is that he was an agnostic deist.

Based on my reading of biographies of Darwin, it appears that his father, Robert Darwin, was skeptical about religion, particularly Christianity, but it would appear inaccurate to label him an atheist, at least as we understand that term today. As for Darwin himself, when he set foot on the Beagle, he was a devout Anglican, and was the butt of jokes for his piety by the crew. However, he clearly lost much if not most of his religious beliefs as he grew older, in part because of his anger over the death of his daughter and in part because of the savagery of nature as described in his theory of natural selection.

As for Darwin himself, when he set foot on the Beagle, he was a devout Anglican, and was the butt of jokes for his piety by the crew.

It's my understanding—mainly from Janet Browne—that Darwin wanted to do what was "right." English gentlemen supported the church and attended services' therefore, Darwin supported the church and attended services. It's what distinguished the upper classes from the lower ones.

It may not be appropriate to refer to this as "devout" and to interpret the behavior as pious.

In fact, given Darwin's family background and upbringing, it doesn't seem likely that he was ever a "devout" Anglican in the sense that he accepted all the beliefs promoted by the church.

I have not read Janet Brownes' biography but other biographies seem to indicate that the crew of the Beagle thought that Darwin was quite devout, based on his behavior, and gave him a hard time over it.

Larry, your definition of "An atheist is someone who doesn't believe in God" as expressed by you and the ID analysis means that anyone having any serious doubts about their faith is an atheist. Darwin's mother and wife were both devout Unitarians, hardly atheists but in the analysis I linked, "the importance of Unitarianism, with its emphasis upon inner feeling over Scriptural or doctrinal authority, as a foundation for Emma's views. They also show that Emma's beliefs were not simple and unwavering, but a product of intensive study and questioning."

It seems about right to assess Darwin as a youth who accepted Christianity without any great faith or piety, and who developed over time into an agnostic deist. There was a telling episode where Darwin, a dropout from Edimburgh university, studied theological texts to convince himself that he could honestly become a parson. It shows acceptance of doctrine but not innate faith in doctrine, and he wasn't the only student destined for holy orders who felt that way.

As for materialism, Desmond's "The Politics of Evolution" pp. 5-6 note 13 is clear that scientific materialists in the 19th century could be deists: although strictly it meant no spirits or vital powers independent of matter, the label was used more widely and included mechanistic explanations of the mind or body by deists who believed in God.

By coincidence, have just found another example of the shocking materialism about these days, in Chicago...http://sciencelife.uchospitals.edu/2009/11/12/the-hopeful-monster-of-human-language/#more-1405

Darwin can be seen as a Christian conformist who gradually became an agnostic deist, but had the uncompromising honesty to look seriously at the outcome of his scientific ideas, and for example to treat language as an evolved behaviour shared to some extent with "lower animals", not something uniquely human and supernatural.

Alternatively, IDists would probably describe that as "a secular noble lie", quoting your more recent post, and would construct a view in which Darwin lied about his childhood beliefs and lied every time he expressed any tentative deism. Looks to me out of character for Darwin, but right in character for cdesign proponentsists...

"Thus disbelief crept over me at a very slow rate, but at last was complete. The rate was so slow that I felt no distress, and have never since doubted even for a single second that my conclusion was correct." This quote is from his autobiography. Maybe I am a bit thick, but that sounds fairly adamant to me.

T. Fife, the "thus disbelief" quote is adamant enough, but note that it's from page 87 of his autobiography, as published unexpurgated by Nora Barlow, and is preceded on page 86 in the same context, "by such reflections as these, which I give not as having the least novelty or value, but as they influenced me, I gradually came to disbelieve in Christianity as a divine revelation."

It's specifically disbelief in Christianity, and does not say anything about his continued if intermittent stirrings of belief in a vague deistic creator.

Having described the Christian threat of hellfire for unbelievers as "a damnable doctrine", he goes on to discuss his later religious views, and notes on pages 92–93 that "When thus reflecting I feel compelled to look to a First Cause having an intelligent mind in some degree analogous to that of man; and I deserve to be called a Theist." before considering the unreliability of evolved beliefs, and concluding on page 94 that "The mystery of the beginning of all things is insoluble by us; and I for one must be content to remain an Agnostic."

Darwin remained adamantly indecisive on this issue: if you define agnosticism as weak atheism, that applies with the caveat about indecisive vague deism, but if you use the common definition of atheism as belief that there is no god or that god is 99% improbable, then Darwin must remain an agnostic.

Laurence A. Moran

Larry Moran is a Professor in the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Toronto. You can contact him by looking up his email address on the University of Toronto website.

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Quotations

The old argument of design in nature, as given by Paley, which formerly seemed to me to be so conclusive, fails, now that the law of natural selection has been discovered. We can no longer argue that, for instance, the beautiful hinge of a bivalve shell must have been made by an intelligent being, like the hinge of a door by man. There seems to be no more design in the variability of organic beings and in the action of natural selection, than in the course which the wind blows.Charles Darwin (c1880)Although I am fully convinced of the truth of the views given in this volume, I by no means expect to convince experienced naturalists whose minds are stocked with a multitude of facts all viewed, during a long course of years, from a point of view directly opposite to mine. It is so easy to hide our ignorance under such expressions as "plan of creation," "unity of design," etc., and to think that we give an explanation when we only restate a fact. Any one whose disposition leads him to attach more weight to unexplained difficulties than to the explanation of a certain number of facts will certainly reject the theory.

Charles Darwin (1859)Science reveals where religion conceals. Where religion purports to explain, it actually resorts to tautology. To assert that "God did it" is no more than an admission of ignorance dressed deceitfully as an explanation...

Quotations

The world is not inhabited exclusively by fools, and when a subject arouses intense interest, as this one has, something other than semantics is usually at stake.
Stephen Jay Gould (1982)
I have championed contingency, and will continue to do so, because its large realm and legitimate claims have been so poorly attended by evolutionary scientists who cannot discern the beat of this different drummer while their brains and ears remain tuned to only the sounds of general theory.
Stephen Jay Gould (2002) p.1339
The essence of Darwinism lies in its claim that natural selection creates the fit. Variation is ubiquitous and random in direction. It supplies raw material only. Natural selection directs the course of evolutionary change.
Stephen Jay Gould (1977)
Rudyard Kipling asked how the leopard got its spots, the rhino its wrinkled skin. He called his answers "just-so stories." When evolutionists try to explain form and behavior, they also tell just-so stories—and the agent is natural selection. Virtuosity in invention replaces testability as the criterion for acceptance.
Stephen Jay Gould (1980)
Since 'change of gene frequencies in populations' is the 'official' definition of evolution, randomness has transgressed Darwin's border and asserted itself as an agent of evolutionary change.
Stephen Jay Gould (1983) p.335
The first commandment for all versions of NOMA might be summarized by stating: "Thou shalt not mix the magisteria by claiming that God directly ordains important events in the history of nature by special interference knowable only through revelation and not accessible to science." In common parlance, we refer to such special interference as "miracle"—operationally defined as a unique and temporary suspension of natural law to reorder the facts of nature by divine fiat.
Stephen Jay Gould (1999) p.84

Quotations

My own view is that conclusions about the evolution of human behavior should be based on research at least as rigorous as that used in studying nonhuman animals. And if you read the animal behavior journals, you'll see that this requirement sets the bar pretty high, so that many assertions about evolutionary psychology sink without a trace.

Jerry Coyne
Why Evolution Is TrueI once made the remark that two things disappeared in 1990: one was communism, the other was biochemistry and that only one of them should be allowed to come back.

Sydney Brenner
TIBS Dec. 2000
It is naïve to think that if a species' environment changes the species must adapt or else become extinct.... Just as a changed environment need not set in motion selection for new adaptations, new adaptations may evolve in an unchanging environment if new mutations arise that are superior to any pre-existing variations

Douglas Futuyma
One of the most frightening things in the Western world, and in this country in particular, is the number of people who believe in things that are scientifically false. If someone tells me that the earth is less than 10,000 years old, in my opinion he should see a psychiatrist.

Francis Crick
There will be no difficulty in computers being adapted to biology. There will be luddites. But they will be buried.

Sydney Brenner
An atheist before Darwin could have said, following Hume: 'I have no explanation for complex biological design. All I know is that God isn't a good explanation, so we must wait and hope that somebody comes up with a better one.' I can't help feeling that such a position, though logically sound, would have left one feeling pretty unsatisfied, and that although atheism might have been logically tenable before Darwin, Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist

Richard Dawkins
Another curious aspect of the theory of evolution is that everybody thinks he understand it. I mean philosophers, social scientists, and so on. While in fact very few people understand it, actually as it stands, even as it stood when Darwin expressed it, and even less as we now may be able to understand it in biology.

Jacques Monod
The false view of evolution as a process of global optimizing has been applied literally by engineers who, taken in by a mistaken metaphor, have attempted to find globally optimal solutions to design problems by writing programs that model evolution by natural selection.